Bittersweet

 You danced around your cane singing ” Around the corner and under tree,  Sgt. Major once said to me….. and while you were singing this and  moving around your cane like a vaudvillian dance act, you lost your balance, your grandson caught you.  Bittersweet memories.  Memories caught on a cell phone only to be stolen by a heartless  &*$%()(!, fortunatley our memories cannot be stolen unless the Almightly decides to snatch it away Himself.

I’ve written about alot of your antics and alot of the good times and the missed times, and I know there must be other times I cannot remember or I have relatives that could put a different slant on history , but now I think it is time to close this blog, not my memories of you, not how much I love and loved you.  You will always be my mother and nothing can change that, through the best of times and the worst of times I loved you unconditionally.   This was created to remember those moments.  I really didn’t have to put on a virtual page these feelings, I’ll always hold in my heart the memories I hold dear of you. 

I’m glad I could share with people  I don’t even know  just a few of those moments.

Happy Trails  to you……….Gloria from Peoria!

 

***your daughter***

A day at the beach

How many summers have gone by since this picture was taken?  You do the math, I don’t want to.  The sand on the beach is gone, the comforter was used to catch the shards of glass from an attempt to make home brew.  The fashions have gone in and out of style, but the one thing that remained the same is mother and daughter.  That didn’t change.   I love the stylish glasses my mom wore and the confident way she always looked into the camera.    There really isn’t anything extra special or in particular to talk about just that I like this photo.  I’ve erased quite a number of deep and meaningful thoughts, I decided I didn’t want this to be heavy, it is what it is a snapshot at the beach with my mom.  We look good don’t we? 

 

 

Thymes in the Garden

Did I tell you before how my mother could grow plants and flowers?  Did you know she probably could look at one and it would bud and bloom, well not really, but for someone that has a brown thumb it is hard to believe  that said thumb belonged to her own,  her daughter and not as hard to believe that she could really do that.

Everywhere we lived we had a garden, we always had flowers, petunias, lilies, hydrangeas , peonies, roses, and that’s only a  few of the flowers and plants, not to mention the vegetable gardens.  Even when she was declining in her health she still persevered in raising flowers and some  tomatoe plants.    It was nothing to her or so it seemed it was everything to me when she couldn’t do this anylonger.  I cannot imagine how it made her feel.

Just the other day I had an urge to plant some marigolds, but for the sake of the plant itself and not leaning too much to memories of my mothers work of her hands I chose to forgo planting and to maintain a visual in my mind of them. 

If plants could talk I’m sure the word was “Whew!”.

 

 

 

Weeding a Memory

I missed you madly and I wanted you to know that the phone was sadly quiet, not a ring anywhere where my ears could hear. Your presence here is sadly missed. No there wasn’t a birthday or even your day of leaving that made me think of you. I was remembering Easter, my patent leather shoes, new anklets, an Easter bonnet and purse. This was way back when and now you are way back when and I can’t even reminisce like I used to. Know one is around, or no one cares. I am greatly missing little things. It didn’t matter if life was imperfect with you, life is imperfect anyway and I am imperfect. What matters is is time and you aren’t here. Thankfully the memories are  and I can sift through it and find the good and weed out the bad.

So here is to happy times and patent leather shoes!

A Missed Tape

The other day I was cleaning out my stack of VHS tapes and I found a tape from eleven years ago.  I thought I all but lost it.  It was a treasure in its imperfectness.  It was skipping  but  I didn’t care I overlooked it.  It was my dads voice and his movement.  His stories and before I realized it you popped up.  When I originally received this video we were all in amazement of it because it was of dad, but surprise I found Gloria from Peoria  on it and to my amazement you were dressed in your deli garb but even better than that, you started dancing.  It was great.  Not only did I have in my hands a treasure of sights and sounds of dad but I had you in action, doing your favorite thing.  Dancing, showing off.  I always thought you had been  shy.  I don’t think so.  Someday I’ll be able to go all the way through this tape, but as for now bits and pieces is all I can handle.  It is surreal to me and confuses the mind but delightful too.    Wow, so much has changed in eleven years, so very much.  What a difference a day makes and we don’t know what tomorrow holds. I do know I’m glad I picked up the dust rag and started cleaning.  

Absent Albert

Where is he? 

Albert Warner?

 For all of my mothers life her real dad was absent.   I don’t believe I’ve imagined what chaos this caused in her life , and how it affected the rest of her family  To all the absent dads out there, serious shame on you making a little girl wonder where you are, what she did to keep you away.  No excuse is good enough and if you let your now present wife or girlfriend keep you away from your child then I wonder who wears the pants in the family. 

At 16,  Albert, she tried to see you and connect with you and you turned her away, more rejection.  I don’t know a whole lot of other things about you other than in my impression you were a coward and I was thrilled when I found out she stomped on your grave.  It was her way of letting the heartache go and letting you know the hurt you caused in her life.   I sit with joy when I think of that, that was her way of releasing you from her life.

Possibly you could have changed all of our lives, just by being there, for taking ownership in your part of your exhale in a shuddering release of ectasy.  A young parent yes, inexperienced, yes, and you made various bad choices growing up like everyone else your age, I’m sure,  a generation had nothing to do with it, but as you aged I would have thought your concious would’ve bothered you.  For shame Albert,  you swept my mother and all the future that came from her under the rug.  You missed out on so much.    I only wish I could have done something to connect my mother to her dad.  But you will never hold that title even in death, you don’t deserve it.  I will also forgive you because  it is what I am supposed to do and I want peace in my life as well.

 May you rest in peace,

will be the only

positive thing

I’ll ever say about  you. 

But a memory and a dance.

February 13,2008-February 13,2009

A year a go was but a memory

a year before that was a conversation and frustration

a year before that was hopeful time well spent and anticipation and fear of dates to come.

I live now in a positive space in time thinking of times past and happy memories, and think of the dance.

You will always be to me a dancing fool

I love you.